“Offering a magical route you won’t find in your Lonely Planet or Fodor’s guide, Dann traces the arc of American technological alchemies—from Samuel Morse and Robert Fulton to Mesmeric physicians, wonder–working Madame Blavatsky, prestidigitator Harry Houdini, seers Helena Roerich and Alice Bailey, the Manhattan Project and Long John Nebel.”

Manhattan has a pervasive quality of glamour—a heightened sense of personality generated by a place whose cinematic, literary, and commercial celebrity lends an aura of the fantastic to even its most commonplace locales. Enchanted New York chronicles an alternate history of this magical isle. It offers a tour along Broadway, focusing on times and places that illuminate a forgotten and sometimes hidden history of New York through site-specific stories of wizards, illuminati, fortune tellers, magicians, and more.

Available on Amazon.

Historian, naturalist, and troubadour Dr. Kevin Dann is the author of a dozen books of exploration on everything from the mysteries of serpentine stone to the psychological riddle of synaesthesia to the biography of one of America’s favorite renegades, Henry David Thoreau.

He has taught at Rutgers University, the University of Vermont, and the State University of New York.

Founder of the pioneering Metahistorical institution, Mermaids Are Real, Dr. Dann also writes, produces, and performs immersive street theatrical extravaganzas in New York City.

Dr. Dann is available for public speaking events and private tours.

Contact him here.

Books

Books